Mar. 28--First, property owners in the Barnett Shale had to decide when to lease their mineral rights and for how much. Now, with the recession pushing back drilling projects, some are being asked to sell their royalty payments.

The offer: Wait for royalty checks to come in month by month -- or just to start in the first place -- or accept a one-time, lump-sum payment in exchange for the right to all those future payments. It's not necessarily a simple decision at a time when natural gas prices have plunged, depressing royalties and putting their future value in doubt.

"Now's the time to buy," said Jerry Simmons, executive director of the National Association of Royalty Owners in Tulsa. Compared with the peaks paid last year, he said, investors face a much more favorable market to accumulate properties.

But is it time to sell?

"I would be very cautious," said Bob West, a Fort Worth oil and gas attorney who has advised a number of neighborhood organizations. "This is a business we haven't heard a lot of in Tarrant County, but I imagine we'll be hearing more of," West said.

One purchaser of royalties, R&L Minerals of Fort Worth, has mailed offers to property owners in southwest Arlington and Kennedale. Another has put up a billboard on Interstate 20 between Fort Worth and Arlington, suggesting that viewers include "sell minerals for CASH" on their to-do list.

There are dozens more across the state and nation, from small shops to Noble Royalties, in Dallas, which claims a royalty portfolio of close to $1 billion. It's a perfectly legitimate business, but that doesn't mean there aren't bad actors.

Simmons said he fielded a call about a year ago from a San Antonio resident with property in North Texas. A royalty buyout offer to the man, in his 80s, escalated from several thousand dollars to $350,000, which he ultimately accepted. He later learned that "he sold a multimillion-dollar asset," Simmons said.

He suggested contacting the Bexar County district attorney, but said the man had already been told by an attorney that the sale was legal.

"I can count the number of honest royalty buyers on the fingers of both hands -- and I'm not sure I'd use all my fingers," said Mark Gresham, who has been in the business for 32 years. Gresham works out of Wharton, southwest of Houston.

He's not too enamored with Barnett Shale landowners, either.

"They all seem to think they're sitting on top of a pot of gold," Gresham said. "They have ridiculously high expectations" that seem to be based on last year's much higher prices.